UNITED KINGDOM
National Catholic Reporter
Catholic News Service | Oct. 16, 2013
SACRAMENTO, CALIF. The president of the California Catholic Conference hailed Gov. Jerry Brown’s veto of a bill that would have reopened the statute of limitations against private employers for child sex abuse cases for a one-year period — but also would have banned lawsuits against public schools and other government agencies, as well as against those found guilty of perpetrating the abuse.
“It was unfair to the vast majority of victims and unfair to all private and nonprofit organizations,” said an Oct. 11 statement by Auxiliary Bishop Gerald Wilkerson of Los Angeles.
California lawmakers in 2002 — when the U.S. clergy sex abuse scandal reached its peak –passed a similar law removing the statute of limitations for one year and added as a new subcategory of defendant employers who either knew, or should have known, of the abuse yet failed to take action. But in 2007, the California Supreme Court ruled that public employers were not subject to its provisions.
A 2008 law enacted in California subjected public employers to some, but not all, of the provisions of the 2002 law.
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